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So what's a good combination for cult and astra militarum. Particularly against a tau player. I enjoy taking the detachment for the cult with iconward compulsory along with one or more subterranean uprisings with a primus in one of the kitted up metamorphs or aberant squads to get 3d6 cult ambush. The question I have is what to do after that. I know it's good to take some extra magus for a higher chance of summoning more cult, so you can take a handful of doting throngs outside the detachment because you can only have a maximum of one of each HQ in the detatchment, or a bunch of combined arms detachments. That would soak up most of your points though. If you weren't as fussy about summoning you could easily take a Astra formation to compliment what I've got so far, or a CAD or AD. Question is what would you take from the militarum lists to best compliment this list. Because the Cult is mainly CC and good at denying enemy shooters, killing vehicles with rending etc I'd say the guard would have a focus on range and objective secured. So after taking a compulsory Company Command Squad and an infantry platoon where would you put your points? Heavy weapons teams? Flyers? Tanks? What formations would work best in your opinion from the astra formations choices. If tanks what tanks, russes? Manticores, basalisks? Even a super heavy like a baneblade could work? Usually play between 1000 and 2500 points but any ideas for more or less points are fine.

I would concentrate on what the cult lacks. Anti air and obj sec.

Im not too big on the guard - Have a few models and such but haven't had a real look over the codex. However, with he cults main advantage being melee - and arguably the psychic phase vs a few - I think that a few artillery vehicles - some of which anti-air because he cult really lacks in that department, as has been pointed out to me - would give you a back line to support your three-armed-gribblies.

A few objective securing units like TimeShadow said would be good, as if you have the option, you should try and keep your gribblies in combat.

Long range support
Basilisks
Leman Russ
Hydras maybe - not too familiar but some seem to love them

objective securing units
standard guard in chimeras to zoom around and grab what your cult-buddies leave undefended after blending any defenders.

Just a thought though, I want to make it very clear that im not very familiar on how the guard work other than there's lots and lots of infantry and cheap yet effective vehicles - but with the guard vehivles are the way to go- especially since the culs dont really have many sturdy vehicles, well, apart from the borrowed guard vehicles .

Cheers for the points guys they actually make a lot of sense

I actually fight a Tau player on a regular basis. He doesn't run a OMG MUST WIN AT ALL COSTS net list, but it is painful to fight against. Plenty of Crisis Suits, loads of Fire Warrior Strike Teams, Pathfinders, Vehicles and a couple Riptides. You know, pretty much bog standard Tau.

I've found a few things to be pretty helpful when fighting him:

1) Leman Russ Eradicators: Eradicator Nova Cannon 100% destroys almost all of his Markerlight network. These are great vehicles to have.

2) Astra Militarum Wyverns: Also extremely good at shelling 90% of infantry from a good distance.

3) Astra Militarum blob squads: Good for a relatively inexpensive (points-wise) massive Objective Secured unit.

Some Genestealer Cult things that have won me games:

1) First Curse: It's a huge and expensive unit, but it's murder. Most opponents will sweat over the prospects of it eating face in close assault. They will make mistakes. Capitalize on them.

2) Subterranean Uprising: Yes. It's great. However, in my experience, I've had better success running the Primus with a maximum-sized squad of Acolyte Hybrids with very few upgrades over other units like Metamorphs or Abberants.

3) MSU everything: I hate MSU, but target over-saturation will win you games.

Hope this helps a little bit.

Cheers man yeah msu has helped me in the past and you gotta do what you gotta do. My plan was to combine msu with long range AM artillery, flyers, heavy weapons teams and deep striking tempestus with melta guns

ravenerioli wrote:
Cheers man yeah msu has helped me in the past and you gotta do what you gotta do. My plan was to combine msu with long range AM artillery, flyers, heavy weapons teams and deep striking tempestus with melta guns

If you can get away without running any AM infantry then do that - I don't know nothin' about no Guarditarum or what formations they have available, but if you can, take nothing but tanks from the AM Codex and dump as many points as you can spare into an Insurrection detachment with a Brood Cycle and Subterranean Uprisings. Basically you want stuff you don't have to babysit, like Russes, stuff that can sit in your deployment zone and plug away from range while your GSC units Cult Ambush all over the place and ruin the opponent's day. Suicide Melta is useful, but not strictly necessary; Hybrid Metamorphs with Claws have S7 Rending and 4 attacks each on the charge, so while they're not quite as reliable as Meltaguns they're still capable of chipping away at AV14.

Yeah my thoughts exactly, there's a heap of good formations to pick from in from the guard codex that make it so you don't have to take any infantry and stay battleforged. This cult/astra combo is a game changer to the whole 40k game and there's still a lot to learn about it all

As a guard player I'd advocate the opposite. Tanks are iconic, but just not that strong in the AM dex at the moment. If you're running mainly foot GSC, the enemy's anti tank will be focused on your russes. More infantry mean that the enemy's anti-infantry capabilities are stretched even further.

I'd back the GSC up with a huge obsec conscript blob. This kind of thing:

Allied detachment for 573pts

CCS with lascannon 80pts
1 x Priest 1 x commissar 50pts

PCS with autocannon + bolter 41pts
2 combined PIS with 2 autocannons, 2 bolters + melta bomb 127pts
50 conscripts 150pts

Wyverns x 2 130pts

Should provide a solid core of obsec that will be a nightmare to shift, some bonus tarpitting/anti infantry and some token ranged anti tank that can benefit from CCS orders. Just ignore fliers, use GSC to take out ground tanks/MCs and tarpit anything you can't kill with conscripts.

 DoomMouse wrote:
As a guard player I'd advocate the opposite. Tanks are iconic, but just not that strong in the AM dex at the moment. If you're running mainly foot GSC, the enemy's anti tank will be focused on your russes. More infantry mean that the enemy's anti-infantry capabilities are stretched even further.

That's all true - but my experience with GSC suggests that most of the time, your infantry isn't on the table, and what's on the table is either locked in combat or in no position to be fired at, usually because it's in a corner somewhere ready to RttS and redeploy next turn. That gives the opponent lots of leeway to blow up your Conscripts.

That said... the main reason I'd want tanks is to squat on the tabletop and not die, allowing me to Cult Ambush as much of my army as possible. I know nothing about IG so I'm going to assume there's, like, 70 dudes there, plus the Hydras. That might be enough dudes to do the job instead of tanks - plus, like you said, it gives folk something else to shoot at with their anti-infantry. I don't know what bonuses IG get to their infantry though - do they still get cover save bonuses and regroup orders and stuff?

One possible issue... if you want to run an MSU Cult Ambush army you're already committed to assembling and painting 100+ models. This means you're doing 170 plus two Hydras. Probably not an issue for people who are not as lazy as I am, but the thought of it makes my head hurt...

Yeah, there's 80 models there plus the wyverns. Conscripts do a fantastic job of not dying. If you've forced your opponent to shoot at 3pt conscripts then whatever he's using will likely not be earning its points back. 50 conscripts should easily hold up even dedicated assault units for a few turns.

IG orders can give tank hunter or ignores cover, both of which are fantastic on autocannons/lascannons. They can also gain extra lasgun shooting with FRFSRF.

I can see that getting the models together wouldn't be the easiest if you don't already play guard. I highly recommend eBay 2nd hand cadians - I've been able to reliably get them for around 50-60p if you buy in large quantities.

Can't wait til I've got my cult forces painted up to run with them!